Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 13, Chapter 14

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 13, Chapter 14

Chapter 14

6th Day, Lower Wind Month, 1 CE

I don’t get it.

Ainz kept a straight face as Albedo rolled out a seemingly endless parade of reports before him. Those reports were accompanied by arrays of projections and, worst of all, questions – requests for feedback from the Sorcerer King and his supreme intellect over any number of esoteric mysteries contained within the documents piled upon his desk.

He often compared Nazarick to a company with himself as its CEO. He believed that he could guide that company in a decent direction – considering the direction things would take if he let the NPCs have their way, it was more that he felt that he had to – but vague directions were all that he could manage.

As was the case with many poor children, the young Suzuki Satoru often fantasised about being the head of a megacorporation despite his elementary education asserting in no uncertain terms that those fantasies would never become reality. Those fantasies were, of course, filled with childlike dreams such as eating solid food once a month or feeling real grass between his toes for once in his life. It went without saying that he would also be a great leader, making perfect decisions that awed all of his subordinates and invariably led to success.

Those fantasies did not include sitting through hours-long meetings trying to make sense of reports from subordinates that were far more capable than he. Ulbert often shook his virtual fist at the ‘despots’ sitting on the boards of the megacorporations and how they only saw people as statistics while pursuing productivity at any cost. Now that he was in a similar position, however, Ainz couldn’t for the life of him figure out how they could have seen things any other way.

Numbers summarised everything that went on in the Sorcerous Kingdom and the places where it involved itself. Even things like public sentiment, quality of life and other ‘feely’ aspects were quantified and transformed into a variety of indices using several models that Albedo deemed suitable for use in governance.

This wasn’t a bad thing in itself. As a ruler, he had neither the time nor the capability to know every minute detail of the territories falling under the rapidly-expanding influence of the Sorcerous Kingdom. Nor could he know every one of his subjects personally and do something about every unique circumstance. Never mind himself, it was impossible for anyone to do it on their own. All he could do was trust those who ran the country in his name to do what needed to be done.

It was said that Emperor Jircniv desired an administrative apparatus that would allow him to lead the Empire using broad strokes in national policy. When Ainz had first heard that, he thought it a novel idea that would allow him to live in relative luxury. Now, he realised that the reason why the Emperor desired such a thing was that broad strokes were all that a sovereign could reasonably make.

Of course, Nazarick’s NPCs didn’t see things that way. He did what he did because he somehow knew everything and how every event would play out. With this understanding, they took it upon themselves to carry out his unfathomable will.

“Ainz-sama,” Albedo’s mellow voice shook him out of his thoughts. “Now that we’ve reviewed the Draconic Kingdom’s proposals, are there any objections or amendments you would like to make?”

He glanced over the summary again, making a show of thoughtful consideration.

“These numbers and projections already appear excellent as they are…”

There wasn’t much to complain about. The Sorcerous Kingdom had forged official diplomatic and trade links with the Draconic Kingdom, and it wasn’t achieved under duress. On top of that, they had signed a thousand-year lease for sixty ‘infantry squads’, plus a support staff of Elder Liches to help with communications and military coordination. The entire bundle consisted of nine hundred fifty middle-tier Undead.

In terms of sales, it was the equivalent of scoring a major defence contract – one that would last a millennium. His old company would have thrown an office party with four different flavours of nutrient paste in addition to giving everyone a half day off for making the sale. It was that big of a deal.

Now, all we have to do is make sure we satisfy our end of the contract. We should throw in some free service once in a while, too. That always makes clients happy. Albedo projects massive growth in the Draconic Kingdom for the long term, so this is definitely a customer we want to keep. Since they’re expanding, they should be upgrading their contract as they go? I should think up some promotions…

Maybe he could finally get around to implementing the rewards program he was considering before he left for Roble. He had given up on it after discovering that Demiurge didn’t intend to promote Undead leases in the Holy Kingdom. As a consolation, Ainz squeezed in his Runecraft™ promotion, but that effort was an absolute flop.

As his thoughts started to wander, he realised that Albedo was patiently awaiting the remainder of his response. He cleared his throat.

“…in fact, you seemed far less agitated over these results from the Draconic Kingdom than you were with the reports from Baharuth and Re-Estize.”

He couldn’t decipher the technical aspects of the reports, but he could certainly feel Albedo’s frustrations over the latter two as they went over them.

Re-Estize was getting nowhere quickly. There were more apologies and excuses from the local collaborators there than anything else. The puppet faction that had been created was filled with blind fools who gave little thought to the power and wealth being lent to them. Each one had aspirations born from their respective delusions and Albedo’s agents struggled to manage them.

At the present, they couldn’t be considered a faction beyond the most cursory sense of the term, and they were far from the point where they could be employed for Nazarick’s purposes. Even so, he couldn’t rightly complain: they were gathered precisely because they were the dregs of Re-Estize’s aristocratic society; spares who previously had no hope of inheritance and were thus afforded little in the way of a Noble’s education by their impoverished houses.

At least the leader that they had set up for the faction appeared to be firmly under Albedo’s control. Based on the letters he wrote to her, he was completely besotted. They were so cringe-worthy that even Albedo couldn’t maintain her everpresent smile of perfect composure when reading them aloud to him.

The Empire faced a somewhat similar set of issues, though those issues were entirely self-inflicted. The great minds of Nazarick were possibly the only people in the world who would call Jircniv a fool, but, after the situation was explained to him, even Ainz could see where they were coming from.

During the bloody ascension that was the source of his epitaph, the then-crown prince eliminated all of his rivals for the throne. In addition to that, he eliminated their supporters and other political opponents. After he took the throne, the Emperor continued his policy of strengthening imperial authority by purging those that resisted his dictates and those who were considered ‘incompetent’.

It seemed like a sound practice in theory, but the reality of things was far from it. While seen as all sorts of other – often derogatory – things, Nobles were the ‘managers’ of imperial society. As a result, the Emperor’s campaign to root out threats to legitimacy, political opponents, and incompetents also resulted in the gutting of the Empire’s administrative class.

He was so focused on doing what he was doing that the only reason that he stopped was because the Imperial Administration was on the verge of collapse. Things had gotten so bad that the Emperor himself had to personally shoulder the administrative burden his actions had created.

Imperial propaganda purportedly spun the entire affair as the necessary cleansing of a corrupt old regime. Quite frankly, so long as the common citizen perceived that their lives were stable and secure, they didn’t care what happened. The fact of the matter, however, was that the Empire had hamstrung itself.

The key to understanding the conundrum lay in the fact that the system of education in the region was not the same as that of Suzuki Satoru’s world. The countries in the region used the ‘guild system’, which was mostly identical to the guild system that dominated Earth’s history for thousands of years. There was no such thing as universal education and educational standards were dictated by the guilds. That education was also highly specialised, with its students entering into master-apprentice relationships as early as the age of four or five.

Administrators were also part of a guild, which was known locally as the nobility. As with any guild, its members were responsible for raising the next generation out of their own number. And, so, by purging the nobility, Jircniv had crippled his administration. Masters were limited because he had killed many of them. Students were similarly limited because he had stripped many houses of their titles.

There was no such fantasy as a nameless boy from a farming village joining the ranks of the Imperial Administration. That was simply not how things worked. Farmers were raised as Farmers. Blacksmiths were raised as Blacksmiths. Most people would be considered illiterate by the Imperial Administration, never mind trained to manage a piece of the Empire according to imperial standards. If such an uneducated person did manage to somehow sneak their way into the position, they would be cut down even faster than their predecessors for incompetence.

In that sense, Jircniv’s privileged upbringing was telling. It was a catastrophic spin on the old tale of the rich kid who had no idea how food arrived at his table. Just like a sheltered scion of an ultrawealthy family in Suzuki Satoru’s world or a fresh graduate from the colleges of the elite, Jircniv had descended from on high to eliminate a ‘problem’ that he had personally invested himself in. His ‘solution’ was so arbitrary and narrowly focused that it caused as many problems as it fixed.

To make things worse, the Empire’s ‘meritocracy’ wasn’t some egalitarian dream. The Empire and its citizens firmly believed that everyone ‘deserved’ the situation that they were in. One was poor because they deserved to be poor and the successful deserved their success.

As a poor ‘commoner’ that grew up under the unyielding boot of Earth’s megacorporations, Ainz saw the Empire’s meritocracy for what it was: utter nonsense. It was a game rigged from top to bottom where the elite were both empowered and incentivised to cherry-pick the finest products and people that their nation had to offer. Every commoner that ‘made it’ served to draw everyone’s gaze away from ten thousand others who ‘didn’t deserve it’, encouraging the population to grind themselves to dust for the sake of the elite.

The Empire had no interest in levelling the playing field: everything it did was for the sake of strengthening its central authority. Education was private and tuition was paid for out of pocket at every level. Thus, the next generation of administrators would be just as limited as the one that had been purged. The replacements that Jircniv seemed to expect would never arrive unless educational reform was implemented, which wouldn’t happen. Only those who were worthy of attention were allowed to crawl to the foot of the imperial throne, and they had to crawl there by their own ‘merit’.

Of course, Albedo – who was nominally responsible for transforming the Empire into a productive client state – had absolutely no issues with their approach. She actually preferred things that way. It was a single, centralised authority with an iron grip on the reins of power that was in turn solely answerable to the Royal Court of the Sorcerous Kingdom. A single channel to communicate her expectations and demands was all that she required, and the imperial dream was a convenient scheme that kept the unwashed masses in their place.

Strangely enough, the Draconic Kingdom was something of the opposite of the Empire, yet they were shaping up to be the most fruitful out of all of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s ventures in foreign affairs. Ainz pondered the mystery for the tenth time that meeting.

“So do you believe the Draconic Kingdom’s systems might be useful to us?” He asked.

“I believe that the Draconic Kingdom is a valuable case study,” Albedo answered. “Their systems are far more resilient than the ones in Roble, Re-Estize and Baharuth. If the same amount of stress applied to the Draconic Kingdom was applied to any of the aforementioned countries, they would surely collapse. In fact, Roble didn’t even experience a tenth of it during Jaldabaoth’s invasion and they are well on their way to becoming entirely dependent on us for their continued existence.”

“I recall your approval over just that.”

“Yes, Ainz-sama. But, beneath the Draconic Kingdom’s sickening veneer of ‘good’, there are some very real mechanisms at work. We must study and learn to take advantage of them in our domestic affairs. They would be especially useful for establishing distant colonies with limited support…perhaps something like a puppet kingdom on the unclaimed fringes of the world. If we can achieve results similar to what the Draconic Kingdom has, we would have entire empires waiting to join us once our sphere of influence expands into their region. If they are prosperous, we would add their prosperity to ours. If they are at war, we would enter on their side. Either way, the Sorcerous Kingdom profits from sculpting the geopolitical landscape in advance of its arrival.”

“Hoh…”

It was a truly adventurous notion. Thus far, the nations they had encountered had been rather uninspiring when it came to any sense of true romance or fantasy – they were more like reality with a fantasy label and the vast majority of everything seemed mundane when placed alongside his expectations.

“In that case,” he said, “I look forward to the fruit of your studies.”

“Your servant will do her utmost to please you, Ainz-sama.”

A knock sounded on his office door. Cixous appeared, lowering her head before them.

“Pandora’s Actor-sama has arrived for his scheduled appointment, Ainz-sama.”

“Oh, is it that time already? I’m sorry Albedo, but…”

“Of course Ainz-sama. It only brings me joy to know you feel that time flies by when we’re together, for I feel the same way…”

Albedo leaned closer as the excitement in her tone escalated. The scent of her perfume wafted over him as she folded her hands together in a way that emphasised her ample cleavage. Ainz’s mouth fell open and his emotional suppression kicked in.

Dammit, I should know better than to say anything that might encourage her by now…

Albedo made her way out of the office, hips swaying as if inviting Ainz to join her. Pandora’s Actor entered the room with a spring in his step, carrying a barrel full of longswords. Ainz forcefully shifted his gaze to the collection of items, trying to figure out what absurdity the Doppelganger was about to unleash upon him.

“Ainnnnz-sama! I have arrived!”

“Yes. Yes, you have.”

The door to the office clicked shut. The barrel in Pandora’s Actor’s arms hit the floor with a thump.

“So this is what you wanted to see me about…”

“Indeed! They represent the fruit of my investigations thus far…behold!”

Pandora’s Actor drew one of the swords from the barrel, holding it aloft. Ainz couldn’t tell what sort of expression the Doppelganger was making as he stared up at it. The sword itself didn’t seem like anything special.

“It’s a sword,” Ainz stated flatly.

“As expected of Ainz-sama! This is, indeed, a sword. A sword of masterwork quality by the standards of the Swordsmith Guild. Bearbear Mark V!”

How would I know that at a glance? I don’t have any Job Classes with item appraisal abilities. Also…

“…Bearbear Mark V?”

A low chuckle rose from Pandora’s Actor, one that slowly grew as it reverberated off of the walls of the office.

“Bearbear Mark V,” Pandora’s Actor intoned. “An ingenious name. One which all but laughs defiantly in the face of ‘common knowledge’. This is the proof that you have sent me to find!”

Pandora’s Actor placed the longsword on Ainz’s desk. The weapon’s pommel was decorated with the head of a bear. It wasn’t made to look like a real bear, but one that might be found on a stuffed toy.

“Did…did you order this?”

“Are you referring to the pommel? No. If I had, I would have asked for something more…dignified. The Weaponsmith that made this puts it on all of her products.”

“I can’t imagine they’d sell very well, despite being of masterwork quality.”

“Her ‘client’ is the Royal Army, and I doubt it matters for the exercises that they’re used in. Nay, what matters here is the crafter. Or more precisely, her age. The Weaponsmith that produced this masterwork longsword is seven years old.”

“…umu.”

“Precisely!” Pandora’s Actor snatched the sword from the table, “It is preeecisely as you say, Ainz-sama! While this item may be painfully plain by our standards, a longsword of this quality is, as the name implies, only produced by master Weaponsmiths!"

The Doppelganger danced around the room, his mustard coat swirling around him as he worked the weapon in ways that Ainz was forced to admit were cool.

“This is hard evidence that the citizens of the Sorcerous Kingdom can be powerlevelled not just in combat job classes as Mare has proven, but in civilian vocations, as well.”

He had to admit it was strange. Ainz’s idea of a master smith before he ended up in their new world was that of a grizzled old man with big muscles, a work apron, and a gruff demeanour. While he quickly found it to be explicitly untrue – smiths were known to graduate from journeyman as early as sixteen – the youngest of them were still over twice the age of the Weaponsmith in question. Furthermore, it more than spanned the gap between child and adult.

“How was this achieved?” Ainz asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Through a certain scheme set in motion by a certain Baroness Ludmila Zahradnik…why is she still a Baroness, by the way?”

‘Baron’, ‘Viscount’, and ‘Count’ were just different levels of middle management to him. The only reasoning he could come up with was that she had the least productive Human territory in the Sorcerous Kingdom by a vast margin. Of course, various things went into that – which Albedo had probably explained but Ainz had forgotten – but if the other fiefs in E-Rantel were akin to entire sales districts, the numbers that Baroness Zahradnik’s territory put out were like those of a minor retail outlet in a poor neighbourhood by comparison.

Still, it wasn’t his ‘department’. He felt that it would be organisationally problematic if he went over the heads of his subordinates.

“You’ll have to ask Shalltear about that,” Ainz said. “Baroness Zahradnik is her vassal, after all. Anyway, you were saying something about a scheme?”

“Indeed,” Pandora’s Actor stopped twirling about. “A clever scheme that simulates a protracted conflict and the economy required to support it. It is a part of her ongoing effort to develop Warden’s Vale into a military base, amongst other things.”

“So you’re saying that this child Weaponsmith is producing equipment for that simulation…and levelled as a result?”

If he thought about it that way, it did make sense. The capabilities of individuals in their new world were dictated by their Job Class Levels. Age was not a barrier to progress and it was often the case that young prodigies appeared that surpassed those who were many decades their senior.

“That is correct, Ainz-sama,” the Doppelganger nodded. “I have always suspected it to be the case, but the relatively low levels of the natives are the result of a combination of factors. Primarily, economic realities bar one from levelling too quickly. A smith cannot afford to produce items without end – they must work within the constraints that their business allows. Furthermore, their business is entirely banal. The average smith is not commissioned to fashion great works that push the limits of their capabilities. They are instead tasked to manufacture nails, repair tools, and produce replacement parts for all of their lives.

“Our work with the Adventurer Guild indicates that ‘effort’, ‘will’, and ‘challenge’ are all components of the formula that leads to growth. ‘Kills’ matter not, so I assume that the volume of completed goods an artisan produces similarly does not matter. With the data provided by our work not only in the Sorcerous Kingdom, but also in the entire region, we can definitively say that this formula applies to civilian vocations. The information coming in from the Draconic Kingdom only solidifies our case.”

Ainz stared at Pandora’s Actor for a long moment, the gears in his empty head grinding away. What did the Draconic Kingdom have to do with any of this?

“So, erm, levelling…”

“Aus Schaden wird man klug,” Pandora’s Actor shrugged. “And the Draconic Kingdom is, in effect, the very picture of this process put to work by the natives of this world. They may not possess our knowledge of Yggdrasil, but one does not need to know how fire works to come up with applications for it. Nay, the process of progress works the other way around.

“These ‘Difficulty Ratings’, guild ranks, and the many other measures like them are simply the way that the natives of this world qualify and quantify its systems. And, for all practical purposes, it works, leading to the complex institutions that you see around us. The state of every country that we have observed can be in most part explained by how efficiently their institutions harness the systems of this world.”

“But the Holy Kingdom was in a somewhat similar situation to the Draconic Kingdom,” Ainz noted, “how would you explain that?”

“They were and they weren’t. Perhaps it is a matter of…intensity? The Holy Kingdom of Roble was indeed subject to the predations of their vastly superior Demihuman neighbours, but it wasn’t to the same degree as the Draconic Kingdom. For the most part, the realities of the Holy Kingdom placed them in the same bucket as Re-Estize and Baharuth. Their situation was never severe enough to force them to reevaluate how they did things. The great wall that they built is symbolic of that thinking: ‘what we have in here is fine, all we have to do is protect it’…or something to that effect.”

“It may be as you say,” Ainz said, “but the Draconic Kingdom was arguably doing the worst out of the countries we have involved ourselves in.”

“That depends on how one frames things,” Pandora’s actor finally decided to take his seat across the desk. “From certain absolute perspectives, the Draconic Kingdom was on the verge of complete failure. However, as far as the local lore is concerned, Human nations as a whole tend to fail. They are simply too weak to stand on their own. As low-levelled as the vast majority of beings in this world seem to be, it is a foregone conclusion with the advantages offered by Racial Class Levels.

“As such, one must look past the obvious; to how these weak Humans can succeed. Once one does that, it becomes clear that the Draconic Kingdom is highly optimised according to the rules of this world. In terms of its overall motif, it is a country that is ‘good’.”

“Good…”

He was rapidly losing the grasp he thought that he had on the discussion. What did good or evil have to do with anything?

“The mundane ‘rationality’ of the region segregates certain actions according to a sort of ‘moral spectrum’, if you will,” Pandora’s Actor said. “Consider the case of a Blacksmith in today’s Draconic Kingdom compared to one in today’s Holy Kingdom. Catastrophe has struck both countries recently and, now, recovery efforts are underway. A challenge, so to speak.

“How does each Blacksmith respond to that challenge? What are the means provided to them? The Draconic Kingdom enacts the ‘good’ approach. Its sovereign is open-handed and the required economic and social infrastructure is in place to facilitate the rapid recovery of the nation. From its highest aristocrats to its meanest farmhands, everyone is driven to rebuild before the next round of raids ravages their region. They are all participants in a grand, collective effort and enact sets of carefully tailored information cascades.

“From our perspective, it is a national powerlevelling effort. To those who do not understand what is going on, it appears as pure, irrational fantasy. They do not perceive all of the mechanisms that combine to amplify the Draconic Kingdom’s efforts into the result that manifests in reality. Unfortunately for the Draconic Kingdom, the fruit of that effort gets eaten on a regular basis, for they ultimately run into the wall that lies between themselves and their much more powerful neighbours. Fortunately for us, that is no longer the case and they have entered into a mutually beneficial relationship with the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“I see,” Ainz stroked his chin. “Then how would you frame what’s going on in the Holy Kingdom?”

“The exact opposite?” Pandora’s Actor tilted his head curiously, “‘Evil’, in a word. Laws are being reformed to become more draconian in the name of ‘recovery’. Resources and manpower are being funnelled through the agents that we’ve placed, delivered according to a strategy that promotes ruthless competition and resentment between its citizens. The unscrupulous and selfish thrive at the expense of their fellows. A place where one may rise ‘above’ all others by casting all others aside. Any ‘good’ that exists outside of the pawn that you’ve created is…aggressively discouraged. Demiurge is ‘maximising’ productivity while at the same time breaking their existing society apart. In time, the Holy Kingdom will be reshaped to suit our needs, though I cannot say whether one will be able to call it a ‘holy kingdom’ by the end of everything.”

Ainz wasn’t sure whether that was at all necessary, but if Demiurge foresaw a need for it, then it was probably best to not say anything. Pandora’s Actor didn’t seem to feel strongly about it either way, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking with a face like his.

“In that case,” Ainz straightened in his chair, “one might say that everything is going according to plan.”

“Indeed, Ainz-sama,” Pandora’s Actor rose from his seat and offered a crisp salute. “We are ever grateful for your guidance in these matters. Whenever I reflect on the fact that everything that has happened so far has been according to Ainz-sama’s grand design, I am struck with awe at the glimpses that you offer of your supreme intellect!”

“Umu,” Ainz could only reply with a regal nod. “Speaking of intellect, Demiurge is the only one out of the three of you that didn’t schedule a meeting. Do you have any idea where he is?”

Pandora’s Actor’s hand lowered slightly to drum his cheek with his long fingers.

“I’m not sure where he is, exactly,” the Doppelganger replied, “but I’m sure that he’s seeing to another one of his many plans.”

Khhschlr crashed through the brush, tripping on a root and landing face-first in the mud. The bunnia she was chasing bounded away and out of sight. She lay where she was for a moment before her stomach growled, and then rolled onto her back with a frustrated cry.

How could they do this to me? After all that I’ve done for them…

They had no appreciation for her. None at all. Decades of her life had been dedicated to the future of Rol’en’gorek. Of both her life and her beloved Dratha’s. In the end, they cast her aside like she was nothing. She didn’t even have Dratha anymore.

No, it was worse than being cast aside, it was exile. That, of course, meant that she had to find her own way forward. But it wasn’t in any way simple.

She had no clan and no allies; no one to call a friend. She had no territory and that of course meant that she had nowhere to hunt…unless she dared hunt in someone else’s territory, which she had just tried.

In short, she had been sentenced to death. Her choices were either slowly going mad as she succumbed to starvation, or being killed for poaching. Khhschlr had chosen the latter, but she was so terrible at hunting that the former might happen anyway. Maybe the local clan’s hunters were watching unseen, laughing at her pitiful attempts to feed herself.

Maybe I should just lie here until I die. This world has nothing left for me.

Something landed on her stomach. Her paw moved to find a dead bunnia there. In the branches overhead, someone was watching her.

“Who…who’s there?”

A figure hopped down from the canopy, her dark wings and tail spread wide as she alighted on the ground beside her. Khhschlr’s eyes narrowed upon realising it wasn’t one of the local Ocelo.

At first, she believed it to be a female Humanoid, but it had the head of a crow. Black feathers covered her arms and lower legs, which ended in human hands and black hooves. The rest of her figure was clad in a tight leather outfit that emphasised her humanoid form.

“You are the Sage, Khhschlr?” The stranger asked as she regarded Khhschlr with the left side of her bird’s head.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“I’ve been searching for you. Word of your great exploits has reached many ears.”

“I-is that so?”

“Indeed,” the stranger nodded with a sorrowful voice. “It is such a tragedy for all of your efforts to go unrecognised. But worry not, Khhschlr, your spectacular talents are not lost on us. One of my colleagues is especially enamoured at how you sought to bring happiness to so many.”

A dark hole opened over the shadows of the jungle floor. Khhschlr sat up, her hunger shoved aside by her curiosity over the sight.

“I have come to make you an offer, good Sage,” the stranger said. “A great venture presents itself – one much better suited to your abilities than this savage jungle filled with ignorant primitives.”

Khhschlr’s gaze fell inward. It was clear that there was nothing left for her in Rol’en’gorek, so what did she have to lose? Except…

“I am but a humble Sage,” Khhschlr rose to her feet and picked the soggy leaves from her fur. “While I may indeed have much to offer, I cannot do everything alone.”

“Worry not,” a smile seemed to creep into the stranger’s voice. “You will find that we have a fine selection of assistants for you to choose from. It may be that you have even encountered a few of them in the past.”

“In that case,” Khhschlr said, “I have no objections about joining you. By the way, I don’t believe you offered me your name…?”

The stranger regarded her for a moment. Khhschlr felt a chill travel down her spine.

“You may call me Saklas,” the stranger told her. “Come, let us be away. Our work awaits.”